The Reign of Rain Robinson

by Roy Glenn

  “No, he just wants him dead. I’ll get Monika on it,” I said, and I looked at Wanda. She had that look on her face that always makes me say, “What?”

  “This is just me playing devil’s advocate,” Wanda began, and Bobby interrupted.

  “You mean your job,” he laughed.

  “I thought she was bearer of bad news,” I said.

  “Ain’t it the same thing?” We both laughed, but not Wanda. She sat stone-faced until me and Bobby finished getting our laugh on before she continued.

  “In my role as devil’s advocate, slash, bearer of bad news,” she faked a smile. “How do you know that Big Tony isn’t setting you up? And don’t tell me that you didn’t think about it.”

  “You’re right, I have thought about it and you’re right, he very well could be setting me up. But that’s the point anyway, isn’t it?” I asked, and Wanda said nothing, which usually means I have a point. “His point in reaching out to me was to eliminate Nicky and it not come back on him. Having me do it gives him deniability.”

  “So, if shit goes south, Big Tony can always point to you and say, Mikey did it. You know him, and Nicky’s had beef for years,” Bobby said.

  “Exactly. So, yeah, Wanda, I did think about it, but the fact is, we owe him. We’d be done, in jail or dead if he hadn’t taken Nicky and Johnny Boy off our necks. So, I’m just going to have to count on the fact that Anthony Collette is an honorable man.”

  “Let’s hope you’re right,” Wanda said.

  “But, just to be on the safe side, I’ve got Rain working on beefing up our numbers. This state of constant war and that little dust-up with The Petty’s has cost us resources and manpower. We need to get back to making money.”

  “What about Johnny Boy?” Bobby asked. “He want you to hit him too?”

  “No,” I said flatly and looked at Wanda to see what she would say about it. Hitting Nicky and not Johnny Boy concerned me, so I knew she’d have serious problems with it.

  “That means he made a deal with Johnny Boy, but I still don’t like it. Johnny Boy coming at us now, in our weakened state, would not go well for us.”

  “I know that,” I said, and Bobby laughed a little.

  “Y’all could barely handle The Petty’s, much less all the muscle Johnny Boy could throw at us.”

  “That’s why I plan to plan for just that contingency.”

  When I left Bobby’s house, I got in the SUV with Chuck. With Napoleon busy running things in Freeport, he has really stepped up and done everything I’ve asked of him. Chuck is a soldier, without question.

  “Where to boss?” He asked when I got in the front seat next to him.

  “Take me to Monika’s.”

  “You want me to call her and let her know we’re coming?” Chuck asked.

  “Why, you afraid she’ll shoot you for knocking too hard on her door?” I asked and laughed because of what happened the last time we showed up at her door unannounced and uninvited.

  “You’re laughing, but yeah.” He took out his phone and dialed her number and put her on speaker so that I could hear. “Monika, it’s Chuck. We’re on our way over there now, so please don’t shove that forty-five in my face.”

  She laughed. “Thanks for letting me know you’re coming, so if you don’t bang on my door, I won’t have to shove my gun in your face.” Once we arrived at her apartment, I explained what I wanted her to do and she basically had the same set of questions as Bobby and Wanda.

  “You want me to hit Johnny Boy too.”

  “No, just Nicky’s crazy ass. But, I want you to work up a profile on Johnny Boy and his crew. I want to have as much information as I can on both his and Nicky’s crew; their operations, the people they do business with, everything. In case this blows back on us, I need to know how they’re gonna come at us and be ready for it. We’re about to make an unsanctioned hit on a made-man, so we need to know as much as we can.”

  “I’m on it, Black,” Monika promised and since I knew she was, and she will get it done for me and do it right, I left her apartment with the intention of going home to relax and enjoy my family.

  “Somebody’s following us,” Chuck said. “You want me to lose them?”

  “No. Pull over up ahead somewhere. At a bar, coffee shop, restaurant, doesn’t matter.”

  Chuck spotted a small coffee shop up ahead on our right and he pulled over. “You stay out here, see how many there are, then call me and let me know,” I said, and I thought about Cassandra’s recent insistence that I start wearing a vest.

  “If Rain has enough sense to wear one, I think you should too,” she said, and she was probably right. I mean, she usually is about most things. “We’re about to have another child, Michael, one that I do not plan on raising alone.”

  “You won’t be alone; you’ll have Michelle and Easy.”

  “You know what I mean,” Cassandra said with her I’m serious Michael look on her pretty face.

  And I did.

  I’ve been rolling the dice with my life for years, so I agreed with her before she got around to reminding me that I am not a young man anymore and honestly, I wasn’t trying to hear it.

  The old Vicious Black days are gone and so is that Mike Black, she’s grown fond of saying.

  I get that, I really do, so maybe, just maybe, for the sake of peace in my house, I’ll start rocking a vest.

  I got out and went into the coffee shop and waited for Chuck to call and let me know what’s up. There was a line at the counter, as it is with all these places, so I got in line and waited like everybody else. When Chuck called, he said that there were three of them and they were coming in.

  “You want me to follow them in?”

  My first thought was to say, hell no, I got this.

  After all, there were just three of them, right?

  No problem, but then I thought about my wife and my children and said, “Come on.”

  When I looked up and saw the three of them come in, my next thought was to call Chuck and say, never mind. I got these three piss-ant little young niggas. But instead, I just shook my head and got out of line and headed toward the back of the shop where the bathrooms were located. I looked over my shoulder to make sure they were following me. When I got back there, I pushed open the bathroom door but kept going out the back door.

  Once I got out there, I waited. Waited for a good five minutes before they came outside. I guess they spent the time trying to figure out how I vanished into thin air, before one of them said, let’s check out back.

  When they came out, I was leaning against a truck with both guns pointed at them. One of them froze right away, another froze when Chuck put his gun to the back of his head. But the last one, he decided that the thing to do was to raise his weapon. When he did, I shot him. You know the routine, one to the chest, one to the dome … make sure he’s gone.

  At that point, the other two decided that they wanted to die too, I don’t know why, but they raised their weapons too. That’s when Chuck put one in the back of his head and I lit up the other.

  “These kids,” Chuck said as we walked back to the car. “Somebody needs to teach them just a little something before they hand them a gun and say go kill somebody,” he said, as we got in.

  “Thug school,” I laughed. “What a concept.”

  Chapter Two

  Carter Garrison had not been himself the last couple of days, and the reason for that was Mileena. When she took Carter back into her life, it was with the understanding that things would be different this time. Now that he was a captain, she thought that he would delegate all of the stuff that he used to do for Howard when he was a soldier. That way, he would be free to spend time with her. That didn’t happen.

  She had grown tired of being the last on his list, and then there was Fantasy. To Mileena, it seemed like every time she turned around, that bitch was all up in his face and he was all up in hers. And on top of that, he spent entirely too much time with Rain, and knowing how much Rain loved
to fuck and knowing how she liked to get fucked because they’d talked about it, she wondered about that too. It was all too much for her, so when Carter returned to the condo that night after rolling out first thing in the morning to be with Rain, Mileena wasn’t there when he got back, and she’d been avoiding speaking to him ever since. And when she did have to speak to him, it was short and straight to the point.

  “I don’t want to see you anymore.”

  So, Carter was fucked up about it. You couldn’t tell it to see or talk to him, but on the inside, losing Mileena again was tearing him apart. When Carter would get to J.R.’, he’d go in, look around for Mileena, knowing that she was there but not being able to find her.

  And when he’d ask other employees, “Have you seen her?” The answer would always lead him on a wild goose chase that would never lead to him seeing, much less talking to Mileena, so he stopped asking. Carter would eventually end up in the office with Rain. She always had something that they needed to handle right away and that kept his mind off Mileena.

  Doing the work. Delivering pain.

  Although he didn’t see Mileena, he did see Fantasy. She blew him a kiss when she saw him and waved him over. Knowing that Fantasy was one of Mileena’s sore spots, he avoided her like she had a contagious disease. But Fantasy wasn’t the only one making herself available to him. Yarissa’s once flirtatious and thinly veiled comments were gone, and she made it plain to Carter that she would set it out for him anytime he wanted it. Since Yarissa sat outside Rain’s office, she was harder to avoid. So, when he got to J.R.’s, what Carter found was that night was no different from the last.

  “Where you been?” Rain asked when Carter shut the door.

  “Had something I needed to do with Chao,” Carter said.

  “Well come on, we got shit to do.”

  “We always do,” Carter said and followed Rain out of the office.

  “If you hear from Jackie, you make sure you call me,” Rain said as she passed Yarissa’s desk.

  “I will.”

  “See ya, Yarissa,” Carter said as he passed.

  “Bye, Carter,” she said sweetly. “See you when you get back.”

  Rain laughed as they went down the stairs. “You gonna end up fuckin’ her.”

  “No, I’m not.”

  “Yes, you are. Yarissa big ass gonna make you take that pussy,” Rain said as she burst through the door into the club. “And if she don’t, that one there will,” she said and pointed at Fantasy who had posted up in a spot where Carter would see her when he came out of the office. “Especially that one.”

  “You’re wrong. I am not the least bit interested in Fantasy,” Carter lied.

  “Nigga, please, you need to get somewhere with that bullshit you talkin’. Fantasy is sexy as fuck,” Rain said and laughed. “I see the way you look at her. And she be giving you that will you please come and fuck me now, Mr. Garrison look,” she said, imitating the way Fantasy spoke. “And you be looking at her like you wanna rip that two-thousand-dollar dress off her ass, bend her over and fuck the shit outta her.” Rain paused. “Tell me I’m wrong.”

  “Okay, I’ll tell you,” Carter said when they got outside of J.R.’s. He stopped and faced her. “You’re wrong,” Carter lied because that was exactly what he wanted to do every time he saw her because Fantasy was drop-dead gorgeous.

  “Whatever, nigga,” Rain said and unlocked her car.

  “Where we going?”

  “We’re going to take care of an annoying problem for a friend of mine.”

  “Who’s the friend?” Carter asked, and Rain just looked at him. She didn’t like answering questions, but she had made him her consigliere, so Carter needed to know. “Gavin Caldwell.”

  “I never met him. I know the old man, of course, and his brother, Butch,” Carter said and remembered that he fucked their sister, Fredricka a couple of times, but it wasn’t good. Thought she was too cute to move and just laid there. “And Fredricka, I know her too.”

  “You probably fucked her too,” Rain said. “Anyway, he needs somebody to have a talk with this nigga about the shit he’s doing.”

  “Don’t he have his own people for that?”

  “Those is Butch’s people, but he’s in jail doing a dime for manslaughter. Gavin tries to stay outta that side of the business, but he does if he has to.”

  “So, what’s the deal?”

  “This is one of Butch’s top people and none of his other people want to fuck with this nigga cause he crazy. Butch said he’s bringing too much heat down on them, so somebody needs to have a talk with him.”

  “What’s his name?”

  “Lamont Drummond, but they call him Drum.”

  Carter laughed. “I know that nigga. And you’re right, that is one crazy mutha fucka. And I can tell you right now, he is not gonna listen to shit you gotta say and if we let him live, he’ll just come after us eventually. Best to put two in his chest and be done with it.”

  “Gavin is good with that.” Consigliere or not, Carter didn’t need to know that’s what Gavin hired Rain to do. Since Butch was in jail, Drum had been making a move to push him out and Butch wasn’t for that at all. “So, we kill the mutha fucka on sight; agreed?”

  “Agreed.” They drove in silence for a while. “So, what’s the plan?”

  “Plan?” Rain laughed. “My plan was to roll up in his spot, we walk him out at gunpoint, and you beat the fuck outta him.” Then I put two in his head. “That was my plan, but you changed the plan. So, this me askin’ you what’s your plan?”

  “I don’t know,” Carter said, and they laughed.

  “I got an idea,” Rain said, took out her phone and dialed a number.

  “Hello.”

  “What’s up, Gavin. This Rain.”

  “What’s up, juicy pussy. You calling to get some of this dick?”

  “Not this time. I’m about to handle that thing for you, but I need you to do something to make it happen.”

  “What’s that?”

  “I need you to call this nigga and arrange a sit down.”

  “For when?”

  “For tonight. Tell him that you got some guard to hook Butch up on Skype to talk to him, so it gotta be tonight.”

  “Where?”

  Rain thought for a minute. “There’s a strip club called Dime Piece.” It was one of the spots that she took from DP. “Call me back when you got it arranged,” she said, and she ended the call.

  “What now?” Carter asked.

  “You know this fuck. How many people is he gonna show up with?”

  “At least four.” Carter paused. “More if he thinks it’s a trap.”

  “Why would he think it’s a trap? They are one big happy family in that camp. And besides, he thinks he’s on top and ain’t nobody gonna fuck with him.”

  It was an hour later when Gavin called back to let Rain know that the sit down had been arranged and Drum would be there at three a.m. sharp. That gave Rain more than enough time to arrange a warm welcome for Drum when he got there.

  “Normally, I would call Jackie, she lives for this kind of shit. But her ass is in the wind.”

  “I’ll get Chao and Geno down there,” Carter said, as Rain headed for Dime Piece.

  “No need, Chee-Chee got people we can use for this.”

  The strip club, Dime Piece that once belonged to DP was now run by Chee-Chee. Back in the day, she used to roll with Shy and Ryder until Shy went to college, Ryder moved to the west coast and she went to jail for armed robbery. When she got out after her last bid, she ran into Ryder and she put her on. Carter had told Ryder that she needed to put together her own crew, one that would be loyal to her, and that was Chee-Chee.

  When Rain and Carter arrived at Dime Piece, she had everything set up and ready to go per Rain’s instructions. All that needed to happen now was for Drum and his crew to show up.

  Rain looked at her watch. “He should be here soon.”

  “Bet you a grand that he’s lat
e,” Carter said.

  “Na, too easy. But I’ll bet you a grand that he is exactly sixteen minutes late.”

  “Bet.”

  It was twenty after three when Drum got to Dime Piece and Rain handed Carter a grand. He came in with four of his men, exactly as Carter had predicted. Once they got there, Chee-Chee escorted them through the club to the gambling room.

  “Gavin is inside waiting for you,” Chee-Chee said, and then she opened the door. “Have fun.” Once Drum and his men were in the room, Chee-Chee closed the door and locked it behind them. “For as long as you live,” she said and walked away.

  Drum and his people stood completely still in the middle of the dimly lit room. “Magic! Where you at?” He called out and he got no answer. But that was when the shooting started from all sides. Drum and his men were surrounded as Rain, Carter, Otis and Reidel, two of Chee-Chee’s men, opened fire. They never had a chance.

  Rain took out her phone and called Gavin. “Problem solved,” she said and walked away. “Now, about that dick?”

  Chapter Three

  His name was Gavin Caldwell, but everybody called him Magic, a nickname he picked up in college. He was the second son of gangster turned businessman, Vince Caldwell.

  Rain was introduced to Gavin by Black when they did a favor for Vince. He had known Vince since the old days when Black first started out working for Andre. Back then, Vince and his partner Bob Garrett made a ton of money for Andre and got huge in the game until the day it all fell apart. Early that morning, Garrett’s wife, Tammy showed up at Garrett’s club at seven in the morning, photocopied all of the documents and then had the maintenance man take it out to her Jaguar.

  After that, she disappeared. Two months later, Vince and Garrett were arrested and charged under New York Penal Law Section 220.77 for operating as a major trafficker. The next time Garrett saw Tammy was on the witness stand in court as the prosecution’s star witness. Fortunately for Vince, his lawyers got the cases separated so Garrett went on trial first. At his trial, Tammy dropped the whole thing on Garrett. She only mentioned Vince’s name once and that was in response to the prosecutor’s question, “Who is Vince Caldwell?”